Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire – 9

Today’s installment concludes Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire,
our selection by François P.G. Guizot.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of nine thousand words. Congratulations!

Previously in Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire.

Time: 486-511

Clovis went to Cologne and convoked the Franks of the canton. “Learn,” said he, “that which hath happened. As I was sailing on the river Scheldt, Cloderic, son of my relative, did vex his father, saying I was minded to slay him; and as Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his son himself sent bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. Cloderic also is dead, smitten I know not by whom as he was opening his father’s treasures. I am altogether unconcerned in it all, and I could not shed the blood of my relatives, for it is a crime. But since it hath so happened, I give unto you counsel, which ye shall follow if it seem to you good; turn ye toward me, and live under my protection.” And they who were present hoisted him on a huge buckler and hailed him king.

After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks came the Franks of Térouanne, and Chararic, their King. He had refused, twenty years before, to march with Clovis against the Roman Syagrius. Clovis, who had not forgotten it, attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them both shorn, ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son deacon. Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to him: “Here be branches which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly dried up: soon they will sprout forth again. May it please God that he who hath wrought all this shall die as quickly!” Clovis considered these words as a menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took possession of their dominions. Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was the third to be attacked. He had served Clovis against Syagrius, but Clovis took no account of that. Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing for flight, when he was seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind his back, and took him to Clovis along with his brother Riquier. “Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race,” said Clovis, “by letting thyself wear bonds? ‘Twere better to have died,” and cleft his skull with one stroke of his battle-axe; then turning to Riquier, “Hadst thou succored thy brother,” said he, “he had assuredly not been bound,” and felled him likewise at his feet. Rignomer, king of the Franks of Le Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, of Clovis. So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all the independent chieftains had disappeared.

It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded by his trusted servants, cried: “Woe is me! who am left as a traveler among strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support in the day of adversity!” Thus do the most shameless take pleasure in exhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow.

It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple or regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked as sufficient expiation upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches and their bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon the absolutions he demanded of them. In times of mingled barbarism and faith there are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with divine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop of Tournai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when the conscience of the Frankish King must have been most heavily laden, he presented himself one day at the church. “My lord King,” said the bishop, “I know wherefore thou art come to me.” “I have nothing special to say unto thee,” rejoined Clovis, “Say not so, O King,” replied the bishop; “thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it.” The King was moved and ended by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of large pardon. St. Eleutherus betook himself to prayer; the King came back the next day, and the bishop gave him a paper on which was written by a divine hand, he said, “the pardon granted to royal offences which might not be revealed.”

Clovis accepted this absolution and loaded the church of Tournai with his gifts. In 511, the very year of his death, his last act in life was the convocation at Orleans of a council, which was attended by thirty bishops from the different parts of his kingdom, and at which were adopted thirty-one canons that, while granting to the Church great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable to humanity and respect for the rights of individuals, bound the Church closely to the state, and gave to royalty, even in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The bishops, on breaking up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give them the sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A few months afterward, on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died at Paris, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, nowadays St. Geneviève, built by his wife, Queen Clotilde, who survived him.

It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted with that great barbarian who, with all his vices and all his crimes, brought about, or rather began, two great matters which have already endured through fourteen centuries and still endure; for he founded the French monarchy and Christian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be closely studied and set in a clear light by history. Nothing similar will be seen for two centuries, under the descendants of Clovis, the Merovingians; among them will be encountered none but those personages whom death reduces to insignificance, whatever may have been their rank in the world, and of whom Vergil thus speaks to Dante:

Waste we no words on them: one glance and pass thou on.”

This ends our series of passages on Clovis Founds the Frankish Empire by François P.G. Guizot. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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